moomin comic strip to be reprinted!!

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (37 of them)
The Moomin website is FANTASTIC.

ng-unit, Thursday, 19 January 2006 04:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Ha, this is great news! The Moomin strips are among the best newspaper comics ever. The series was started by Tove Jansson but she was replaced by her brother Lars after a couple of years, and I think he did a fine job. The strips are more adult-oriented and political than the Moomin books, they pretty much reflect the era they were written (late sixties and the seventies). They feature hippies, anarchists, pacifists, etc, and there's even one episode where the Moomins do drugs (though it's done in the good-natured spirit of the series, it's not Fritz the Kat or anything).

Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 19 January 2006 07:51 (eighteen years ago) link

I hope they do reprint the Lars Jansson strips too and not just the Tove ones, in my opinion they were even better than hers.

Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 19 January 2006 10:11 (eighteen years ago) link

bit misleading to say tove was replaced after a couple of years -- she asked her brother to take over drawing the newspaper strip after a couple of DECADES (it began in the late 30s or early 40s), and continued to pretty much oversee it all the time he drew it (until the copyright was sold to an animation company, to pay medical bills i think) -- it's not like he took her duff concept and made it fly

mark s (mark s), Thursday, 19 January 2006 16:18 (eighteen years ago) link

Article says strip started in 1954, Lars started drawing in 1969 (but was collaborating before that?), strip ended in 1974. The Devlin piece in his (FANTASTIC, HATAZ) guest-edited issue of TCJ, as I recall, stated that Lars was involved for a longer period, particularly was drawing well before he took over writing too.

kit brash (kit brash), Thursday, 19 January 2006 21:35 (eighteen years ago) link

According to the Finnish Comic Society's site (which should be a pretty reliable source) Tove wrote and draw the Moomin strip from 1954 to 1957, and Lars from 1961 to 1975. During 1958-60 Lars wrote and Tove illustrated it. They kept Tove's name in the strips longer than she actually did them though (for image reasons I guess), I think Lars' signature first appeared in them in the late sixties. But if you read the strips in chronological order it's quite clear when the artist changes from Tove to Lars. Anyway, not to discredit Tove in any way, I think it's Lars who made the strip something special and also distinctive from the Moomin books. His strips are fun and anarchic, which makes for a nice contrast between the more peaceful and pensive books, yet the characters remain recognizably same in both.

Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 19 January 2006 23:15 (eighteen years ago) link

lambiek.net: "Born into a creative family, Tove Jansson studied art in Helsinki, Stockholm and Paris. She is part of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, and her books were originally written in Swedish. In 1939, she created her first comic collection, 'Kometjakten', featuring the Mumins, or Moomins, a little troll-like people, which went on to gain international popularity. In 1954, they became a running feature in the Evening News."

what does comic collection mean? comicbook? Kometjakten is the name of the first moomin book (actually the second, but the first to be translated into english)

wiki: "In 1952, after Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll had been translated into English, a British publisher asked if Tove Jansson would be interested in drawing comic strips about the Moomins. Jansson had already drawn a long Moomin comic adventure, Mumintrollet och jordens undergång ("Moomintrolls and the End of the World"), based loosely on Comet in Moominland, for the Finland-Swedish newspaper Ny Tid, and she accepted the offer. The comic strip Moomintroll, started in 1954 in the Evening News, a newspaper for the London area and London commuters (no longer in business). Tove Jansson drew 21 long Moomin stories from 1954 to 1959, writing them at first by herself and then with her brother Lars Jansson. She eventually gave the strip up because the daily work of a comic artist did not leave her time to write books and paint, but Lars took over the strip and continued it until 1975."

mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 January 2006 00:11 (eighteen years ago) link

(so fair enough that the newspaper strip started in 1954 -- but i don't think her cartooning w.moomins did)

haha wiki also says when she worked for the satirical mag garm in the 30s she drew a famous cartoon of hitler as a screaming baby with politicians like neville chamberlain trying to placate him with cake!

mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 January 2006 00:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Awesome!

Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Friday, 20 January 2006 00:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Tove Jansson was also one of the first lesbian public figures in Finland. She never spoke about it officially, but she didn't try to hide it either. Sometime in the late eighties or early nineties she was invited to the Finnish Independence Day Ball at the Presidential Castle (which is like the social event in Finland, everyone watches it on the telly), and she brought her girlfriend as her avec, which was still rather unheard of at the time.

One thing I like about the Moomin comics is that, even thouh they have gags and all, the individual stories are really long. Most of the Finnish collections have only two big stories per book, they must've ran for several months in the papers.

Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 20 January 2006 08:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, Tooticky(?) ("Tuutikki" in Finnish) was supposedly based on her girlfriend, Tuulikki Pietilä.

Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 20 January 2006 09:52 (eighteen years ago) link

exactly :)

mark s (mark s), Friday, 20 January 2006 11:28 (eighteen years ago) link

one year passes...

the first volume of this is the loveliest designed book i own, but the comic totally seems to be still finding its feet in it: the last story, with the moomin-ancestors, mymble, the professor, and the pirates, is fantastic though.

second one out soon apparently. does anyone know whether d&q are going to do the lars janssen years as well?

thomp, Thursday, 12 July 2007 13:24 (sixteen years ago) link

they say they're not.

energy flash gordon, Thursday, 12 July 2007 22:40 (sixteen years ago) link

well, bummer.

thomp, Friday, 13 July 2007 19:33 (sixteen years ago) link

otm.

energy flash gordon, Saturday, 14 July 2007 01:26 (sixteen years ago) link

The series does indeed get better as it goes on, the later Tove strips and the sixties Lars strips are the best in my opinion. It's too bad if they're not reprinting Lars's run, it's not like there's much of a difference difference between them, and as I said before, the series gets even better when Lars steps in. You should organize a campaign to get the Lars strips reprinted too, the late sixties stories where he makes gentle fun on the phenomena of that era (like hippies, gurus, and drugs) are a treat.

Tuomas, Monday, 16 July 2007 13:47 (sixteen years ago) link

two years pass...

they say they're not.

― energy flash gordon, Friday, 13 July 2007

Three years later, Tom Devlin announces they will be moving on to do Lars as well.

oh shit a ◕‿‿◕ (sic), Saturday, 10 July 2010 04:41 (thirteen years ago) link

so psyched for more of these! good news.

bug holocaust (sleeve), Saturday, 10 July 2010 05:20 (thirteen years ago) link

four years pass...

so does this new "Deluxe" collection have everything?

http://boingboing.net/2015/01/30/moomin-eccentric-comic-mas.html

brain floss mix (sleeve), Friday, 30 January 2015 16:56 (nine years ago) link

Well, considering the strip ran for 20 years, I doubt it... It might have all the Tove strips, though? But there's twice as much of the Lars strips. The D&Q reprints are apparently up to 10 books by now.

Tuomas, Friday, 30 January 2015 18:50 (nine years ago) link

OK the D&Q site says that it's all of the Tove ones, good enough for me!

brain floss mix (sleeve), Friday, 30 January 2015 19:02 (nine years ago) link

sooo, then what's the deal with all the separate standalone books they are coming out with?

e.g.

Moomin and the Martians
Moomin on the Riviera
Moomin and the Golden Tail
Moomin's Desert Island
Moomin and The Sea
Moomin and the Comet
Moomin Builds A House
Moomin Falls In Love
Moomin's Winter Follies
Moominvalley Turns Jungle
Who Will Comfort Toffle?
The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My

are these just stories from the strip?

brain floss mix (sleeve), Friday, 30 January 2015 19:04 (nine years ago) link

The first eight are storylines from the strip, I think. Who Will Comfort Toffle? is not a comic but a kids' picture book, it's really pretty. Not sure about the last one, it might be another picture book? Tove made a handful of those, they have these lavish illustrations and were really cool to read as a kid.

Tuomas, Friday, 30 January 2015 20:54 (nine years ago) link

excellent, thanks

brain floss mix (sleeve), Friday, 30 January 2015 20:55 (nine years ago) link

Yeah, I think the last one is another picture book. I remember fruitlessly searching for the last two at the library a couple of years back.

Indiana Jones and the Sphincter of the Sphinx (Old Lunch), Friday, 30 January 2015 20:59 (nine years ago) link

Who Will Comfort Toffle? is amazingly poignant and beautiful! Kids' picture book in the Moomin universe; the Groke features and the Moominfamily/Snorkmaiden appear at a distance iirc but it's I guess not quite a Moomin book per se

wondering which translation it is as a new one came out a few years ago

sorry, no idea about the others but will be keeping my eyes open for them

club mate martyr (a passing spacecadet), Friday, 30 January 2015 21:55 (nine years ago) link

Ah, okay now I know what "The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My" is, it's another picture book, also very beautiful! The catch in that book is that there's always a hole in each page, showing something from the next/previous page spread, and the hole is integrated into the art and story, so the characters are following the wholes from one spread to another.

You can see some pages of it if you google the Finnish title.

Tuomas, Saturday, 31 January 2015 00:42 (nine years ago) link

aw man I totally need that!

parakeetal pancreasface (sleeve), Saturday, 31 January 2015 01:31 (nine years ago) link

That sounds awesome!

Likewise re Googling, the Swedish title of Who Will Comfort Toffle? offers some pages and there's even a Swedish musical animated version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSYkx3OYixA

(don't watch the whole thing if you don't want the plot spoiled I guess, but you're probably fine to skip through the first 16-17 minutes)

club mate martyr (a passing spacecadet), Saturday, 31 January 2015 17:58 (nine years ago) link

The Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My is great - my daughter loves it, though the carefully cut pages are vulnerable to her poking at the various holes, gaps, pipes,etc, the characters crawl through

as verbose and purple as a Peter Ustinov made of plums (James Morrison), Thursday, 5 February 2015 01:35 (nine years ago) link

four years pass...

waht

https://www.moomin.com/en/moominvalley/

anyone seen it yet?

Emperor Tonetta Ketchup (sleeve), Saturday, 6 April 2019 14:52 (five years ago) link

Music is an immediate turn off

i believe that (s)he is sincere (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 6 April 2019 14:53 (five years ago) link

apparently 1 in 4 Finnish people watched the 1st episode?

Emperor Tonetta Ketchup (sleeve), Saturday, 6 April 2019 14:55 (five years ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.